For better, for worse

STOCKTON - She looked at him with adoration in her eyes, slowly leaned in and gently kissed the hand she's been holding for more than half a century.

Jason Anderson

STOCKTON - She looked at him with adoration in her eyes, slowly leaned in and gently kissed the hand she's been holding for more than half a century.

Their life together hasn't been the same since she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2001. They don't travel like they used to and only see each other when he visits her memory care facility on Sundays.

Relatives and caregivers said she doesn't even remember they are married, but John and Jean Laufman still share a love that was evident Saturday when they renewed their wedding vows after 60 years.

"She grabbed me by the hand, and she never wanted to let go," John said.

They sat together under a gazebo draped in grape vines, surrounded by family and residents of the Golden Haven residential care facility in Stockton. She couldn't say "I do" because her illness has limited her ability to speak, but the words were written all over her face.

"This is the way every woman wants to be loved, truly in sickness and in health," said Rowena Ramirez, Golden Haven's medical director.

John is 87. Jean is 88. Tracy resident Janet Farmer, one of the Laufmans' three children, said her mother no longer remembers how she is related to loved ones, but she knows certain relationships are special.

"She knows that I'm familiar and my dad is familiar," Farmer said. "To her, my dad might be her brother or her uncle or her cousin, but I think there's some memory of what it feels like to hold each other's hands even if she doesn't remember a lot of other things."

Gabby and Christina Farmer said it was touching to watch their grandparents renew their wedding vows, noting how much they still love each other.

"It was beautiful," said Christina Farmer, 16. "Grandpa does everything for her, and I think she still loves him. They will never stop loving each other. It's true love."

Gabby Farmer, 19, agreed.

"He talks about her all the time," she said. "At least once a day he tells me the story of how they met."

It was the early 1950s. John Laufman had joined the Army and was stationed on Staten Island. Jean was a volunteer for United Services Organizations Inc., who helped organize dances for soldiers in New York. They met at one of those dances, but it was a chance encounter that almost never happened.

Jean wasn't feeling well the night of the dance and didn't want to go, but her friends convinced to anyway. John didn't like to dance and didn't want to go. His friends dragged him along, too.

The USO had a strict rule forbidding volunteers from fraternizing with the soldiers, but John and Jean began to fall in love that night. They wrote to each other for months after John was discharged and returned to Los Angeles. Eventually, John asked Jean to marry him, and she did Feb. 9, 1953.

They flew all over the state together in an airplane that John built and traveled the country in motor homes. They spent a lot of time in Naples, Fla., rural Pennsylvania and Jean's native New Jersey, where they frolicked on the Jersey Shore.

John cared for Jean at their home in Redding for several years after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, giving up his hobbies to be there for her around the clock.

"My dad is such a great guy," Janet Farmer said. "He just stopped doing everything he wanted to do, golfing and all that, to become a short-order cook and caregiver 100 percent of the time."

Jean's condition began to worsen in 2006. She moved into a care facility in 2007.

John has since moved into his daughter's home in Tracy, which allows him to be closer to his beloved wife. He visits her at least once a week, usually on Sundays.

"Her face lights up when he comes in the room," Ramirez said. "It's really touching to see because, no matter what impairment they may have with their cognition or their memory, they can still feel love and you can see that connection when they interact with each other."